howling ghosts, they reappear
by TaoGrace
Summary: would that time had stopped before
1. i held on as tightly

It seems that time freezes, for once. Freezes like a fish in the midst of ice, caught unawares in a net so much stronger than anything it had ever known. Time freezes like the air in her lungs, the beat of her dead heart, coming back to life, freezes like a gasp not yet torn from her throat.

 _Would that time had stopped before._

Before it had all hapened. Before centuries had become history, and fact story and myth and legend.

Would that it had stopped before Ysabeau's heart had been irrevocably broken.

The vacuum birthed in her grief dies and is sucked into being, into air, as eyes blink and a pair of eyebrows is raised and that mouth, the mouth she had learned and known and loved, opens around a word.

"What..." he begins, not quite certain and gods in heaven, his voice. A whispered word, four letters, and she's gone. It's his voice that breaks her, his voice that undoes every ounce of careful indifference sculpted in her being over the millennia.

Before she can control it, before Ysabeau can lock it back in herself and never let it see daylight, a sob breaks free from her chest, and it comes from an ache so deep and unending in her heart, an ache like nothing else in the world, because _he is here._

 _Philippe._ Philippe as she'd forgotten him, tall and strong, all harsh edges, strong lines and smooth curves. Her eyes rake over him as one, then a second, and maybe a third sob heaves from her throat, and he's there, _he's there_ , and he is full of all the small and half-remembered details grief had stolen from her, details unknown and yet familiar; it's the soft crease between his straight eyebrows, the twitch of his eyelid, the shadows of his lashes against his skin, golden in the candlelight.

She does not allow herself to look for too long at one feature, one quirk of life in a dead memory, for there's a deep, infinitely strong fear somewhere in the back of her heart, and it crawls and whispers softly at the edge of her consciousness that _oh, he'll be gone, tis but a dream turned a nightmare, and now you'll awaken and it'll all be dust in your eyes and shards down your throat,_ so she does her best to look, to see, to remind herself of the very essence of his soul, to remember it all.

The folds of rich fabric straining against his shoulders, the slope of his waist, his calloused hands and hard, unbroken knuckles, and gods, he's in front of her and kneeling, _why is he kneeling_ , and Ysabeau realises that she must've fallen to her knees on the stone floor, and she fights the urge to _look_ , because _this nightmare is too close, too close_ and she knows, and yet goes against her every rule she'd created when the night terrors were too real to be bearable.

 _Never look into his eyes,_ whatever is left of her brain whispers as she looks up, _this is when gorged eyes and empty sockets greet you merrily, and they're weeping blood, Philippe's blood, and it flows like the Acheron, while he screams and screams that you've failed him yet again._

She should force her lids shut, to hide from memories and nightmares and pain, but before she can, her eyes, treasonous beasts that they are, slip from the point on the stone floor and go up and up and up, and there is brown and gold and flecks of forest green, and she forgets what it means to breathe.

"Ysabeau?"

She stills, cold as death, and loses herself in those eyes. Gods. God. Any deity and demon that may grace the heavens and hells of this world,

She is trembling as warm hands come against her bare shoulders, callouses against cold flesh and one heartbeat later, as her husband's arms come around her, Ysabeau de Clermont feels herself fall forward, curl her legs to her chest, inhale deeply and scream.


	2. as you held

Later, she is in his arms, and his shirt and neck and jaw are likely stained red from her tears, and her throat is hoarse from screaming, but gods, she is numb and warm and cold and the haze only allows her to feel the littlest of things.

Ysabeau feels herself breathe, feels the solid form against her, an embrace like a warm blanket, or a bath she could sink in forevermore. She feels fingertips play on her spine, soothing and soft. When she remembers whom these figertips belong to, her breath catches in her throat, she opens her eyes and dares to steal a look

He is staring at nothing; nothing and everything all in one; she remembers this expression of his only too well, it is the one he would make when faced with a particularly complex issue. Her nose grazes the skin of his neck as she takes him in, and she wonders abstractly at her rasp of his orderly beard, he dreads that thing - always has and always will, the memory in her head whispers- the cut of his cheekbones and the curl of his hair.

It is somewhere in the late autumn afternoon, she knows, by the ever fading light, it is the time when the castle fires were stoked and the old walls warmed, and Sept-Tours is home once more, it is a mountain raised upon warm dreams in the midst of snowy peaks and forests.

They are in his tower room, the place she never dares to go in anymore. How they came here she does not know, Ysabeau can only guess that he's carried her all the way from downstairs. The both of them lay in an undignified heap, her torn skirt allowing for mobility, limbs entangled and she basks in his scent, in his arms.

Only the thought of him whole and alive is enough to send her heart aflutter, the impossibility of it, the question ever present in the back of her mind, whatever is left of it, the question whether she is insane or not, whether this is real (memories and gore, death and darkness, all of her companions for so, so long, they all whisper she's gone and mad, and soon enough, she'll be waking up in their tingling grasp once more), or not.

Yssbeau does not care.

Her husband exhales. Feeling her restlessness, the hand on the small of her back rises softly, coming up and up, following the dip of her waist, her shoulder blades, her neck, until he reaches her hair and combs his fingers through it soothingly.

No, with him here, with Philippe close enough to smell and hear and feel, the fear of losing herself to insanity is irrelevant and tiny, a featherless bird hiding in the face of her need, the pure and naked need to be near him.

It scares her, just how well Philippe knows her body. How all the nooks and crannies and muscles are known to him, how well he could recognise her every flinch, her every reaction. How he could soothe the tension in her.

It scares her now, the way she becomes boneless in his arms; she remembers suddenly, oddly, just how terrified she'd been of his touch at the beginning.

"Ysabeau?" he asks infinitely soft, his voice barely above a whisper in her ear. It must've been something that alarmed him, a catch in her breath, the quickening of her heartbeat, a tremble in a muscle that alerted him to her thoughts.

She'd forgotten how easy she was for him to read.

"I was remembering," she says, voice raw from screaming. She feels his answering hum from deep in his chest, pressed as her ear is against his shoulder. One of his hands travels up and down her bare arm, raising goose pimples in its wake and relaxing her, all at the same time. She takes it as encouragement. "I was remembering how we were at first," she begins, closing her eyes, "how terrified I'd been of you. Of Marthe. Of everyone and everything."

A huff of breath, resembling a chuckle and she figures Philippe is biting his cheeks not to smile, bastard that he is, set on disagreeing with her.

"I do not know who was more scared of whom, mon coeur, especially after... hmm, what was his name," a pause, and he scrunches up his eyebrows, trying to recall some detail that is elluding her, "Agapios, I think- yes, that was it - after Agapios's legion attacking our villa."

Philippe smiles down at her, a small curl lifting the corner of his mouth, barely enough for the dimple in his cheek to show for a moment. At the sight of his smile, sweet as honey in warm milk, his eyes molten for her, she feels her throat constrict painfully, her heart rising in her chest as she forces the words from past her lips.

"Which one was that?" and gods, her voice is cracking on that the last syllable and she feels her eyes fill and Ysabeau shuts them painfully, willing the blood to go back, willing the pain between her ribs and the trembling in her limbs gone.

"That," her husband begins, taking her face in his hands gently, gods, so gently that her heart breaks all over again, and he brushes the drops of blood on her cheeks away with his thumbs, "that was when you burned two dozens of Knossos's best warriors alive, threw some off the cliffs and into the sea, and broke Marthe's favourite painted vase against the head of that giant Phoenician."

Ysabeau bites down on her lip to keep the sobs from breaking out, her nose running, and yet she can stop neither the cry from her throat, nor the smile big enough to make her cheeks hurt.

"That, and a few bricks," and she hiccups, the smile and the crinkle at the corners of Philippe's brown-green eyes tearing at her heart, "dreadful, that one. Marthe gave me hell over that blasted vase."

Ysabeau is clutching at every detail of his being, if only to distract herself from the pain in her heart, when the realisation hits her and her eyebrows furrow in confusion.

"How did you know that?" she askes her husband, looking into his eyes, the amusement in them making her tingle from her fingertips to her toes, "You had not arrived until after the Phoenician was down!"

The sheepish expression on his face gives her pause, and he licks his lips before saying, "I arrived on the balcony just as two officers were grasping at the curtains on the balcony while falling into the sea after you had pushed them. I was then just preparing to intervene-,"

"Then why did you not?-" Ysabeau begins, ignoring the lump in her throat in favour of the familiar feeling of mild annoyance tinted with amusement and affection when finding out her husband had done a particularly oafish thing, but then he interrupts her.

"Because," and now he's lowering his head, gazing into her soul, and then presses his lips firmly to her forehead, making her breath catch, "I was far too busy being mesmerised by the Fury the gods had unleashed; the Fury wrecking havoc in my hall, you see." And he smiles down at her so softly, almost reverently, almost as if he were in awe of her, and for the life of her, even millenia later, Ysabeau still cannot understand why.

The sound that escapes from her throat then is half a sob and half chuckle, and her hands come up to hold his, her fingers brush over Philippe's knuckles, tangle with his longer fingers, where they rest on either side of her jaw. She tears her gaze from his, and her loss gnaws at her so deeply. It catches up to her in this past or present or whatever reality she finds herself into, and she starts shaking like a leaf in the power of the wind and hates herself for it. For what she must say, for the spell she must break.

She gathers her courage, gods, however much of it is left, and raises her eyes, looking into his waiting face, and there's patience, so much patience, but also a touch of tiredness, a touch of weariness and she hates herself for it.

Her mouth opens and struggles to form the words. "I - you see, I am n-not," she stutters, clenches her jaw, blinks and fixes her eyes on the pulse at his throat, his living, beating heart, and she must, she must, she must, "I am not - not from-"

"I know."

Ysabeau looks up at him faster than lightning, confusion filling her completely. "What? You c-can't possibly-"

"You are not the Ysabeau from this time; from this age." he finishes the sentence resolutely, the tendons in his neck straining, his jaw clenching with restraint.

"How do you know - you are not listening! What I am trying to say is that -"

"I know."

The sadness, the painful resignation in his voice is something she has not heard from her mate in her entire life for more than a handful of times, not even that many, and never so - so broken, so resolute.

"Heavens and hells," Ysabeau exclaims in a whisper as their eyes meet, and the understanding in his is mirrored by the pain she sees reflected in hers. It suddenly clicks in her mind, "that means... That means that, all along...you had known."

His eyes harden, they fill with something like an apology, something like regret, something that breaks her in a thousand jagged pieces, something so very dark and twisted and lost and foreign in his mien. "I do not know the time of my death, my love. No creature ever should. But," and his hands leave her jaw, only to trace and caress her skin, down her arm until reaching her wrist, then knuckles, and he takes her left hand in both of his and looks at it. At the small indent in the skin of her finger. The place where her wedding ring had rested, the one bearing their words. The one she'd given to Diana, in hopes it will reach him. One last note she would send, one last clue he should notice, one last riddle for him to solve. She bites the inside of her cheek, when he continues, "I knew from the moment they first came to Sept-Tour, that in this future of theirs, I would be gone whilst you remained."

He bows his head and presses his lips to her fingers, and a sob and moan are both torn from deep within her.

Philippe is evading her gaze, having closed his eyes and for a moment, she does not want to imagine the torment in them, the cold calculations, his machinations and the plots he yet means to weave, for however long he can. Her heart skips a beat then, and Philippe looks at her, finally.

Nothing could have prepared her for the tears in his eyes.

It feels as if someone had stuck a sword in her chest, taken out her beating heart then laid it at his feet.

Ysabeau cannot breathe, cannot blink, cannot think. She only knows that her trembling hands, seemingly having another master, one capable of conscious thought at the moment, take his face and raise it to hers.

She does not know what to do; what one does when met with absolute grief. She only knows a half-forgotten call, from her to him, so that is what she does.

She cups his face gingerly, fingers catching the rasp of his beard and the wisps of his curly hair.

How small her hands are in his. How small and inconsequential she is in comparison to him, to the both of them together.

"Yes," she begins, unsure what to say, but resolute all the same, because it has been so long, so long since she'd seen that lost look in someone's eye, a gaping wound open in the soul and heart. It seems so long since she'd broken each and every mirror she laid eyes on, unable to bear looking at the same feral, lost look in her own face, not after 1944. "Yes, I did remain whilst you were gone."

Philippe's bloodshot eyes follow her as she pulls his head close to hers, and Ysabeau closes her eyes and presses her lips to the bridge of his nose, the to his cheekbone, kissing a tear away.

Gods, even the taste of his blood, even that makes her lightheaded with fear and grief and desire.

But none of that, not now, not when he needs her.

"You were gone," her voice cracks, but she does not care, "and it felt as if my heart had been torn from me," she snarls, a wild and ugly thing and Ysabeau bumps her forehead slightly into his, and nuzzles him with her nose as she reaches down around herself to grab his hands from where they've fallen.

She grips his knuckles, nails digging into his skin, because she needs him to feel, and she raises them to her chest, just underneath her collarbone, where must feel the thunderous beat of her heart against his knuckles. Ysabeau looks into gold-green eyes, dark and as full with blood as her own and forces the words past her teeth.

"You were gone, and yet you were still there," she rasps, feeling his fingers sprawl against her sternum, "still here. No matter what I did, I could not rid myself of you. You were in every breath I took, in every sound I heard; you were in my blood. You were everywhere."

Gods, there is anger in her now. It's a bitter sort of rage, it makes her unable to see straight, and it's what makes her claw at her own flesh, as if she could open up her chest, carve out her heart, as if there was a cage surrounding her, and she could only break free.

A calming breath, soft and deep, fans against her ear, as warm fingers tangle with hers, stopping them from further tearing at her flesh.

She'd been trembling, Ysabeau realises, trembling in anger, and, as her husband presses a long kiss to the dip of her chin, she knows the tremor in her bones is for another reason whatsoever.

"I would," he cups her face, and another kiss is pressed against her jaw, "I would set your free, if I could." There is desperation in his voice as it breaks, the desperation that comes with the knowledge that immortality is a lie, and gods, they break together.

Ysabeau untangles their hands, choosing instead to rake her fingers along the sides of his face, through his short beard, against the strong cut of his cheekbones and then on his scalp, nails softly digging in his skin and she whispers against his mouth,

"That is the biggest lie you've ever told me."

A hand fists in the hair at the base of her skull, another wraps itself around her frame, molding her to him and hells, do they fit.

Half-lidden eyes find his, a ring of green and gold and brown around a sea of darkness, and his eyes laugh in blood, an unhinged shadow of chuckle escapes his mouth, and there is pain in those orbs, pain and madness and want, all those, and the terror that cones with mortality, and something else, something she's silently feared since the dawn of time, the love he held for her.

Philippe angles her head, brushes his nose against hers, an answer to her call and, when his mouth is but a whisper away from hers,

"Yes."

* * *

 **A/N: there will be a third part. because i'm evil and these two break my heart over and over again**


	3. onto me

"Yes," he says again, pressing a kiss to her lower lip.

"Yes," again as he takes it between his teeth and pulls, bringing her to him.

Ysabeau does not close her eyes into the kiss, her bloodshot green orbs are instead staring at him, drinking him in whole, while she presses her mouth to his, the movement natural and unthinking, and he hates himself for allowing such grief to lay waste to her heart. There is a clearness to her gaze, accentuated by her wet, dark lashes and the pale glow of her cheeks, and it chills him to the marrow of his bones.

She is skinny and fragile and resilient, and it's so very hard to not blame himself for turning her so. For causing her all this pain.

It is one thing to vaguely know, but not be truly conscious of the fact that one day, his wife would be without him. It is hard to imagine such a day, when she is grinning and laughing, wild and unrelenting in the present.

It is another thing entirely to hear her screams and feel her twittering heartbeat through her ribs and a tremble through her lips as she holds in a sob.

This is not what Ysabeau was made for. This is not what centuries by his side were meant to make of her.

She was never meant for hollow grief and tears; his wife was meant for wild cunning and wicked laughter, she was meant for love and longing and want, and gods, how he has wanted!

For so long, Ysabeau has been his heart of hearts, the breath in his lungs, each mid morning dream locked inside a broken sigh.

He has never given her up, has never forgotten the curl of her lips and the frown between her eyebrows. Her war cries, the calculated madness of her stratagems, the deep scars hidden on her body, and the soft sighs that escape her plump mouth. They've all been etched into his soul so, so long ago.

Philippe wonders if perhaps this is the price he must pay for their centuries, to see the woman he has loved beyond belief and reason, destroyed by him.

For surely, who else is there to blame for her tears, who else is at fault for the tremble in her jaw and ache in her heart? It is him, him forever and always, laying waste to whatever he touches.

Even her. Good gods in heaven, he has destroyed her, and it is not worth it, he - he would rather she had never come back to him all those times, rather he could have turned her away, rather she were free of him, than this, than Ysabeau, his Ysabeau marked by such grief.

Never. Never should she have to feel this way, never-

"It was not your choice to make." An ounce of certainty in her raw voice, an ounce that was not there before.

Of course she would speak so. Of course.

"No. It was not, but-"

"It was mine. They were my choices, time and again. Don't take those away from me."

Her small hands are cupping his jaw, forcing him to look her in the eye. He is mesmerized, in awe, lost in the cruel green of her gaze.

"My pain is all I have left, Philippe. Leave me at least that."

He grasps her hands, his breath catches in his throat at the broken smile she offers him.

"You've taken everything else there was."

Without his notice, a sob breaks free from his throat. "That is not, not what-"

"What? What was meant for us? How could we have known?"

She kisses the tear on his cheek, her mouth soft and warm

"However much we fancied ourselves gods, we were only ever creatures, my love," she murmurs wistfully, and a part of Philippe wants to fight against it, fight against this dead resolve in her voice, but there is no point to it.

"Why did it have to end so, then? Have we glimpsed the sun long enough for him to melt our wings?"

There is something between heartbreak and exasperated affection in her eyes.

"Don't get coy, now, Philippe. You never did believe in fate"

"I believed in making my own" and it sound like an excuse, a hollow and pathetic excuse.

"You wanted to believe in justice; so we decided to forge our own"

Why does she rationalize away, why does she defend him?

"Wouldn't your beloved Christians consider that such a great sin?"

A watery smile and a raised eyebrow, "Don't start singing Hail Marys now, I beg you. It suits you ill. And yes. A just world is a fool's dream"

That she would still call him a fool soothes his heart, there is still some soul left in her.

"How so, mon coeur?"

A light shines in her hooded eyes, and she looks down at him from where she is perched on his lap.

"Were the world just, I would've died with you and we wouldn't be apart"

The breath is stolen from his lungs, it chokes and strangles him, and yet, the green of her eyes pulls him through, sings and calls to him, unlike anything else in the world.

"But we are not," he whispers.

A kiss to her sternum. Calloused fingers sliding underneath soft silk and rough lace. Ysabeau lets her head fall forward. She nuzzles his hair, the auburn, brown and golden mess of curls tickling the tip of her nose. Her heart beats faster, the rhythm of it urging Philippe on, making him snake his arms around her. He presses his ear to the fabric over her breast bone, listening intently for the music inside of her.

He feels nails scrape his scalp and a warm mouth finding his forehead.

"We are not," she answers against his skin, her heart thundering in her chest as she raises his head to look at him.

Throughout the years, there have been few sights that made him stop stupid and stare.

One of the last rays of light at dusk bathing Ysabeau in some sort of ethereal aura is one such sight. The autumn sun burns almost coldly; and yet there is nothing but warmth surrounding him as it gilds the curtain of Ysabeau's hair, surrounding him as she looks into his eyes. The glimmer of gold in hers and the translucent skin on her cheeks, adorned with faint traces of bloody tears. There are tiny freckles on the bridge of her straight nose, and she flushes underneath his gaze, good gods, she is a marvel, and there is a moment, one fraction of a precious second in which a fire ignites deep in her soul, and the smile on her lips turns from bittersweet to surreal, the corners of her eyes crinkle, and her full mouth curls upwards in a secret sort of way.

The moment takes root in her heart and he sees it in her eyes, he sees the second Ysabeau de Clermont comes to life once more, he sees the awareness and confidence and that wicked spark of triumph, and his heart fills.

There is naught to do but laugh. Philippe laughs freely, like he hasn't in centuries. He is reminded of the song of the sea crashing in waves against the shore, of running barefoot in a blooming orchard, of the taste of a stolen fistful of olives beneath a birch tree's shadow.

He is reminded of home .

She smiles so brightly, wide enough for her face to hurt, but if she feels anything akin to the elation is his chest, then he can very well understand it. His wife bites her lip, as if to stop herself from smiling (it is impossible, he forbids it, this smile is why his heart yet beats and why it will one day stop, this smile is everything that ever was and will be, and she fails to control it). Philippe cannot stop himself from kissing that lip, taking it between his and worrying it properly, cannot stop that tiny laugh escaping from his throat, he cannot stop himself slightly bumping his forehead into hers, inhaling her perfume and looking into those teary eyes as he pulls her flush to him.

She deepens the kiss, arches her back like a cat and tightens her thighs around his hips. They had been sitting on one of the many couches lining the walls of this room, cushions and silks and brocade thrown haphazardly over them. Her shoe snags on a piece of silk as he grasps the back of her thighs and lifts her up, standing in precocious balance, the weight of his wife curling around him unlike any other pleasure in the world.

She closes her eyes and sighs into their kiss, her tongue brushing against his at the seam of his lips. Feather soft caresses are turning into the rake of her nails through his beard, through his unkempt hair, down his spine, underneath his doublet.

The momentum makes him lose his balance and she uses it to pin him to one of the bedposts. How they reached the bed is quite unclear to him, but far be it from him to complain. The sculpted wood digs into his back, a backdrop to the softness of her raw lips. He turns around, hooking a hand around Ysabeau's hips and the other around the bedpost, devil take the arse who invented intricate beds, may he burn in Tartaros everlasting. He stumbles on the single step towards the actual mattress and Ysabeau breaks their kiss with a yelp.

He sprawls her underneath him, settles himself more comfortably between her hips as she giggles, and "Philippe, you're tugging on my hair!" she manages during her fit of laughter.

The breathless smile on her face gives him life, so he peppers her neck and jaw with kisses and fists a hand in the hair at her nape, gathering her long locks from under her. She rewards him with a kiss, nimble fingers tugging at the laces and buttons of his doublet, untangling most and ripping the rest.

He does not know what to make of her clothes. There is no button, no lace, no nothing, and yet the thing that passes for a skirt is hiked up to her hips, there is a line of naked skin above her waist, and he will not even try to find a name for whatever is the thing wrapped around her torso. Ysabeau, having kicked off her shoes, is seemingly distracted by his kisses and his clothes, so he traces the thing until he finds some sort of seam. He begins to tug a little more forcefully when-

"Philippe de Clermont, don't you dare."

He slumps, burying his head in the nook between her neck and her shoulder, and looks up at her sheepishly, from underneath his lashes.

"But why?"

"Because you are not an animal," the bemused smile on her face makes him grin in his beard.

"Then how?" he asks, with whatever patience he has left. And given that his shirt is hanging open and his breeches too, that is not much. She snorts and giggles at his childish petulance, the sound like bells in a clear winter morning and it is all so worth it.

"You lift it up." A kiss to her collarbone, open mouthed and long. She moans quietly in answer, the rasp of his beard no doubt pleasing to her soft skin.

Philippe tugs the damned thing upwards, marveling at how the material stretches, but it catches in her hair, long as it is.

The thing goes over her head, finally, and he opens his eyes to look at her.

He frowns. Then blinks.

"What the devil is that?

Ysabeau nearly falls off the bed, shaking with laughter. "I can't - no, there is no - I just can't" she tries to speak in between fits, but only manages to snort and laugh harder. Philippe rolls his eyes and rakes his fingers through his hair, fighting the urge to tug on his beard.

He looks over his shoulder at his wife, still holding her stomach, tears of mirth at the corners of her eyes. Even if it is at his expense, may the gods keep that laughter. He throws himself down on the bed at her side, watching her profile, and maybe the slope of her breasts in that…contraption.

"Is that…lace?" he asks, more to amuse her further than to understand that devilry.

It has the desired effect, peals of laughter coming out of her. She covers her mouth with a dainty hand and snorts adorably, scrunches up her nose and tries to calm herself. When she finally manages to do so, she looks at him through bleary eyes. Ysabeau licks her lips and sighs in contentment. Then, to his surprise, turns around, away from him. Before he can ask, she says, "Clasps, Philippe. Tiny little clasps with hooks at the back. Right down the middle."

Indeed, he can see the small bits of metal lost in the lacy thing that goes around her breasts. They're easy to unhook, only slightly catching, and Philippe slides his fingers along the freed flesh. He presses his lips to her spine, feeling her breath catch. His kisses go lower, his arms wrap around her waist. He reaches the edge of her skirt, and has the good sense wait for Ysabeau's hushed whispers of "up, up" to figure that this one is supposed to go that way, too.

She twists in his arms, somehow winding up above him, catching his mouth open in a kiss. There is yearning, and hunger, and want, and Ysabeau is almost trembling with them, she is all tongue and teeth soothed with bitten lips, and her breasts are soft against his chest, while her ribs are showing, reminding him of her frailty.

His fingers tangle with hers and help her get the tight thing over her head. He throws the garment somewhere in the room, lets go of her for long enough that she can free him of his shirt.

They are skin to skin, and it feels like paradise. He needs to see her, needs to watch her writhe and squirm and moan, so he nips the underside of her jaw, presses kisses to the column of her throat. She tightens around him, her legs and arms encasing him. Golden strands get in his mouth, but what does it matter, when he cups one of her glorious breasts and wraps an arm around her frame to hold her steady.

She is curled like a kitten around him, her face is pressed into his hair and these soft little gasps come out of her mouth, they come from deep inside her, and there is nothing Philippe wants more than to set them free, set her free, break the lock that binds her heart and tears it open.

His lips close around a rosy nipple, suckling until the moan the escapes her calms the whirlwind in his blood. It calls to her, his blood calls to her, and she knows it. Philippe raises his eyes to hers, they are alive, they are green and mad and haunted and alive, and he does not leave her gaze while he releases her breast with a loud, wet sound, and traces a path between her breasts, finding at long last the faint shadow of a scar above her heart. He feels its beat underneath his lips, and her eyes widen, something breaks inside her when she realises his intention.

"Don't," she murmurs, her voice tiny and broken, "Please don't."

She shakes her head, tears dripping down the tip of her nose, "Don't, please. I don't want you to - no, ple - Philippe," her voice catches on his name and her hands come up to cover her mouth, and it is as if the mere calling of his name would break her heart, and Philippe feels as if someone had gutted him.

"Shhhhh," he whispers in her skin. He straightens himself and pulls her into his chest. "Hush, my love. Hush."

He takes her face into his hands gingerly, combs his fingers through her hair to push it away from her eyes, he throws her mane over her shoulder and looks into her them.

"I'm sorry, forgi-"

"There is nothing to forgive, Ysabeau. Nothing at all."

"I'm not - I'm…. I just - I do not want you to see that."

"What is there to see, my love?"

"My…me. Me. I do not want you to see me, not like this; I am not your Ysabeau. I am no-

"But you are. In whatever world or time, you are my Ysabeau, as I am your Philippe. For how long have you held onto that pain, for how long have you kept it inside of you, let it eat you alive?"

"You don't understand, you arse! My pain is all I have left of you!" she almost shouts, her voice breaking, "If you - if you take that away, then what is there left?"

Something inside him is torn to pieces in that moment, but he must, he must, he must.

"Everything," he forces himself to say, and he smiles, "even if you let it go, everything you are will still be here," he kisses her brow, and she sobs, "and here," he bows his head and presses his lips to the scar above her heart.

Her arms wrap tightly around his shoulders and his head, as if it would cause her the most excruciating pain if he were not there. He lets himself rest against her chest, Philippe cradles her and begs whatever god is listening that she does not feel the tears dripping down his face as he listens.

"But you will not be there," she whispers. "I had forgotten so much of you. You cannot begin to grasp it, the way time destroys what is left of my memories of you. There is only an emptiness howling in my heart, and I am afraid of it."

He rocks her gently, lets her speak her mind. She has never told this to anyone, she has held it inside of her for too long, and even as it breaks his heart, he must listen, he must, for her.

A hollow chuckle escapes her, so unlike her giggles from a few minutes ago.

"There are no more notes in our library, my heart. I've scoured it so many times, and nothing."

"Nothing?" he asks, his heart still in his throat.

Ysabeau snorts. "….so I do not forget. Neither that I hold you heart, nor your name, you misbegotten bastard."

Relief floods him. "You received it," he sighs. "I did not think you would, but I wanted to reach out to you, some way or another."

Philippe looks at her. He remains yet close enough that her arms are thrown around his neck, but he can now catch her gaze.

He smiles, trying to pour his soul into this, for her.

He winks at her, and whispers conspiratorially

"Shout abuse all you like, my lady love. We both know you fancy the pants off me," he says with a crooked grin.

Something between a sob and laughter comes past her lips. She closes her eyes and rests her forehead on his shoulder.

Finally, "I do, sadly. And I do not want to be without you," she murmurs tiredly, her breath a phantom caress raising goosebumps in its wake.

"But you must."

She cries silently, her lashes warm with blood against his skin as she kisses his collar bone. Her teeth nip at it and he moans softly, heat gathering low in his belly. She trails kisses, open mouthed and wet until she reaches the twin to her scar, the bit of silvery flesh above his heartbeat, the one that is, beyond the breath in his lungs and the tears in his eyes, and the very thoughts in his brain, the mark that he belongs to her.

He fists his hands in her hair, mused and tangled and curled by his fingers, and he shakes like a leaf in the wind when she traces the puckered flesh with her tongue, and moans wantonly when her fangs break the skin.

Instantly, the moment her tongue tastes his blood, he feels as naked as a newborn, helpless as she bathes in the emotion coursing through him. He does not want it to stop. He wants to be bare before her, wants her to feel the desire, and resolve, the fact that he wants more than anything for her to be free.

By the time she finishes, the tears on her cheeks are fresh, she is raw and mad and flushed so he kisses her, slowly, maddeningly; he slowly, cautiously takes her under him, touching her hips, the dip of her waist, her breast, her finely boned neck. She arches her back like a cat, moans into the pillow and tugs on his hair when he wraps her legs around his head and kisses her.

When she peaks, her eyes roll to the back of her head, her red mouth opens in a gasp, the rasp of his beard harsh against the tender skin of her inner thighs.

She looks at him through hooded eyes, green and dazed with pleasure, and stops him before he can wipe his mouth with the back of his hand. Ysabeau slants her lips to his, her leg trembling as she hooks it around his hip. He enters her slowly, and she engulfs him wholly, the heat of her almost too much for him.

They move in unison, reflex calling to reflex, pants and moans and groans, he must be balding what with the strength she pulls his hair with.

Bucking his hips, he hits a spot inside her, and she throws her head back. Time and again, her cries are music to his ears, he presses her into the mattress and groans in her neck, whispering hoarsely, "let it go, my love, let go of it"

There are tears dripping down the sides of her face as she nods. He kisses them away, meets her gaze, and there is an understanding between them, this is it, it is now or never, and Philippe traces adorations in her scars, the ones he knows and those he doesn't, on her arms and fingers, the dent where his wedding ring had rested for centuries, the scars on her belly and thigh, where her leg had been broken so many millennia ago, her hands reach for his and their fingers tangle as he finally kisses the scar on her breast, and he softly, lovingly, reverently breaks the skin and finds blood.

He is sucked deep into this abyss, he is falling, screams and death and madness screeching like shards of glass down his throat. Rage and bitterness, and this unending gulf of sadness, pure and unadulterated grief, grief too potent for tears, there is emptiness and there is his own voice, trembling and unrecognizable, there is an empty gaze, and a thousand corpses, hanging in the shadows of a war ravaged city, the blood dripping off them, silent howl in the night. There is Sept Tours, a ruin of what it once was, tens of covens lying obliterated on its battlements. There is the sole survivor, a widow in a field of corpses, and Philippe holds her tight, holds her to his heart, but she is as dead as the rest, her eyes are cold and green and lifeless, and no number of kisses would bring her back.

She screams and he has heard this scream before, has heard a voice half so heartbreaking in a cage, locked above a tower near a river's mouth. Then and now, he will take her with him, he will set her free, he will lay the world at her feet, he will throw it away and leave her to conquer, and through centuries and ache and a thousand lifetimes, they will see each other again.

They always do.

Those green eyes he's learned and loved and seen die are now staring at him, wide open, alive and bloodshot and shining.

She rolls them over, their hands intertwined on either side of his head. They're crying, the both of them are, she's cursing the day he was born and made and they day they met, she curses her heart, and his, she curses fate for taking him away, she curses fate for giving him back, all the while twisting above him with abandon.

He brings her hand to his face, she cups it, and Philippe takes her thumb between his lips and bites it softly.

"Ysabeau, come, my love, my heart, come."

Her whimper is positively vulgar, she rolls her hips once, twice, shouts as he shifts his hips and

"You first, Philippe," she grins through her tears, and she is alive and wicked and immortal and invincible above him, and he laughs and moans and lets himself go, feeling her tighten one last time and lose herself in the same moment with him.

Ysabeau falls on his chest, limp and boneless. His arms feel as heavy as lead, but somehow he manages to raise them, wrap them around her, press a kiss to her sweat slicked forehead.

They're panting softly, quietly, a pair of hearts beating together.

She dozes off, sleep stealing her away, making her limbs heavy and cold. She always gets cold in her sleep, gods.

Philippe is barely able to slither out from under her, locked as her legs and arms were around him. His wife mutters in her sleep, her long hair wild around the pillow she curled on. There still is some mildly hot water heated by the yet-burning fireplace in a corner of the room. He wets a piece of soft cloth and brings it back to the bed, cleaning up the mess they've made.

Ysabeau sleepily kicks at him and he chuckles, grabs her by the foot and presses a kiss to her ankle.

"Come back to bed," she says sluggishly, curling up in a ball. "It is cold, Philippe."

There is no way he will move from this bed any time soon, so he chucks the wet cloth over his shoulder, the splash of water indicating that he has indeed, not missed the target.

Smiling at himself, he wriggles the bed covers from underneath Ysabeau, with no lack of opposition from her, and slides beneath them. His wife curls around him, and he kisses her once, before nestling himself in the crook of her neck. Arms come around him, a pleased expression on his wife's sleeping face, and Philippe falls asleep to the slow sound of her heartbeat.


End file.
